‘And there I was, all alone, with $1,200 in cash. Oh, the temptation . . .’ : A Quiet Walk on a Lonely Path

This is a season of great events, of social movements that come crashing out of places like Encino and Laurel Canyon to feed the poor, house the homeless, cure the sick and put a toy in the hand of a grubby urchin we won’t even recognize after the calamitous Christmas parade has clanged by.

It is a time of noisy marches and banging drums, whole committees rising up to meet the conditional needs of the poster people to whom we pay emotional homage during a season that has grown from the quiet acknowledgement of a biblical folk tale into a foot-stompin’ ritual of retail excesses and mind-shattering media barrages.

Christmas has become a crescendo of hustle, not a religious observance; a time to assuage guilt, not to give for the purity of giving. Chambers of commerce determine the parameters of the season the way J.C. Penney sets a white sale, and we all march lock step toward the killing Rambo toys with a hollow ho, ho, ho.

Which is why I was ready for Paul Jacob.

By standards history thrusts upon us, the memory of what the man did will not last beyond next Tuesday, but it comes at a time when we need to be reminded that there is something out there more meaningful than the thunder of money.

There is, thank God, quiet conscience.

For those who missed Wednesday’s story, Jacob found a purse Sunday night on a street corner in Reseda. He opened it. The purse contained $1,200 in cash.

He had been out in the first place to make a last-minute, final-deadline payment on his car. Necessity, not fate, had thrust him into the autumn darkness.

And he saw the purse.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said to me Wednesday. “I kept digging through it like a madman. The money was in 20s and 100s. Stuck here, tucked there. I felt like I’d just fallen into a gold mine.”

For a guy with one leg and five children, it seemed like the kind of miracle O. Henry used to write about. In the shank of Christmas, money for toys. Dump the purse, keep the cash, who’s the wiser?

Economic survival by any means is a platinum reality in Ronald Reagan’s America.

Jacob sat alone in his car for a long time, the money of his miracle illuminated by a single street light.

“I kept thinking how much we could use that cash,” he said. “We’ve been swamped by car repairs and medical bills, and Christmas was almost here. I make about $35,000 a year, but it’s a struggle just to live. We have nothing in savings and just enough in our checking account to get by.

“And there I was, all alone, with $1,200 in cash. Oh, the temptation . . .”

He thought about the Christmas lists his five kids had made up and how little of it he was going to be able to fulfill without utilizing the cash he now held in his hands.

He thought about an ad he had seen for a $985 used car he needed so desperately just to get to and from work.

He thought about all the extras the money meant, the small luxuries, the gleaming necessities.

But then . . .

“Hey, wait,” I said to myself. “What am I doing? The woman who lost this probably has kids. This is their Christmas money, not mine. It wouldn’t be fair . . . it wouldn’t be right . . . “

Conscience rarely shouts. Honor often goes unheard in the clamor of banging drums and clanging bells.

But Jacob, a good man, listened and heard and waited no longer. Using the driver’s license he found in the purse, he looked up a telephone number and dialed.

My name is Paul Jacob, and I think I’ve found your purse . . .

“I thought my conscience might be a little more important than my kids’ Christmas,” he said later. “So I took it back.”

The woman who lost the purse cried with gratitude. Her incredulous husband gave Paul $100 and a new wallet. They have two children.

They couldn’t believe someone would actually return cash that was impossible to trace and ask for nothing in return. Paul even accepted the $100 reward with reluctance.

“There are people in this world who will think I’m a raving idiot,” Jacob said. “I had a chance to take a smooth ride and I didn’t. I’m on a lonely path.”

I asked him about it again Wednesday.

“I keep thinking about the things $1,200 will buy,” he said. “It all seemed so glorious when I found the money. And now I’m back in the same fix. I did the right thing, but so what?”

So this, Paul Jacob.

Be proud.

You gave to us and to your family the greatest single gift we might ever receive, a gift that exists for its own sake, transcending all the wretched hustle of a net-profit holiday to shine like a special star of Christmas over a scene that borders on madness.

You gave us, very quietly and in your own way, an example of honor that isn’t for sale.

What a wondrous gift that is.